


Blue

by hotchoco195



Series: Spectrum [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Feels, FrostWidow, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Jötunn Loki, Post Avengers (Movie), Protective Natasha, Therapy, Two Broken People, but it's really not the focus, seriously many many feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 05:18:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotchoco195/pseuds/hotchoco195
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don’t hate each other. Loki’s hatred is all-encompassing, but not specific. Natasha learned a long time ago not to attach any kind of emotions to people she might have to kill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue

 

They don’t hate each other. Loki’s hatred is all-encompassing, but not specific. Natasha learned a long time ago not to attach any kind of emotions to people she might have to kill. In a strange way they recognise each other like no one else can.

She comes to him when he’s slipped off the edge of the world, wielding death in her hands. He turns weary eyes on her, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth, and she makes a choice someone made for her once.

She takes him away; doesn’t believe he’ll be allowed to defect like she was. He’s too much of a threat. She takes him to the place she knows best. If she had fond memories, they would be for those black woods and white fields, and she knows them better than almost anyone. They’re safe there. It’s a strange feeling.

For the first month he’s catatonic. He sits all day wrapped in his blankets and she talks – to him, at him, just to fill the silence of the cabin for her own sake. She talks about anything and everything, tells him more about her than she’s ever told anyone, even Clint. It just pours out, and she’s not sure if any of it helps but it’s making her feel better so she keeps talking.

He rests a hand on hers one day in the middle of a monologue on sitcoms and laugh tracks.

“Thank you.”

“Call me Natasha.”

 

He still doesn’t talk, but he moves around now. He cleans and cooks and hunts with her, magicking down birds and foxes and skinning them with the ease of long practice. She knows better than to ask who taught him. Natasha’s not sure anymore what to do; rescuing someone from themselves is much harder from the rescuer’s side. She doesn’t know how to put Loki back together when she’s so broken herself.

“Why are you doing this? You’ve signed your life away for me.”

“It seemed like my turn to do the right thing.”

“Working on your ledger?”

“Something like that.”

He starts to open up a bit more. Nothing too personal, just the odd joke or story. Sometimes they’re horrific and sometimes they’re heartbreaking, but Tasha listens to all of them and says nothing. She’s starting to get Loki’s problem, and it’s so obvious it makes her realise how fucked up _she_ is. The guy just wants to belong.

She knows how to twist men into knots. She can seduce them, break them, kill them, trap them – when she got her first curves they taught her how to weaponise every inch of budding flesh. Her body is dangerous, all of it, not just the muscles she trains. But she can’t use it to help Loki; she walks around in barely anything and he looks right through her like glass.

“I don’t know how to help you.”

“You are helping.”

“Let me try something else.”

But it won’t work if it’s only pretending, and all Natasha knows how to do is pretend.

 

She takes him out into the coldest places, the most desolate.

“Show me who you are.”

“No.”

“Show me.”

“ _No_.”

She hits him. He scowls but won’t change.

“What are you afraid of out here?”

His voice is so quiet she almost doesn’t hear it. “Me.”

“Show me why.”

He shows her, and she keeps her arms crossed and her face still.

“That’s it?”

His face is a cross between shock and shame, and she punches him again.

“Stop being an idiot.”

“I’m a monster.”

“I’ve seen worse.”

 

He won’t go back to Asgard. They can’t stay in the wilderness forever. She tries again and he turns her away. He won’t take it if it’s not real. Natasha’s not sure she knows what real is.

“Why are you still here?”

“Because you need me to be.”

She avoids the inevitable question about what happens after that. She’s not sure she’ll be welcome anywhere but maybe that’s a good thing. She could start over. She could be free. She wishes Loki saw things that way too.

“Do you want to go somewhere?”

“Will it make this easier?”

“Probably not.”

“Alright.”

 

So they travel. With Loki’s magic and Natasha’s skills they get around mostly undetected. They zip from country to country and she never makes sermons, just lets him watch and make his own conclusions. In Iceland she sees him in a new light, one that goes beyond camaraderie or base desire or empathy. She realises she’d miss him if he left. Loki’s eyes turn to her and she looks away quickly, suddenly afraid.

They keep going, as if they have some silent agreement they’ll carry on until they find something neither of them can describe. Tasha tells him more things, true things – things she was never sure about because they clashed with everything she’d been told to believe. He gives her smiles that are sincere.

In Thailand they’re camping on the side of a mountain when she tries again. He moves away, still fragile, but he reads the genuine plea in her eyes and spreads his arms.

“It’s real now.”

It’s the scariest thing she’s ever done. Afterwards she cries, for all the things she’s done and all the things it’s done to her. Loki just wraps himself around her like a blanket cocoon and talks.

They never go back; never stop looking even though they’ve found it. They’re both too afraid it will disappear if they examine it too closely. Instead they keep roaming but it’s better.

They don’t love each other. Loki wants to be loved, more than anything, and Natasha learned a long time ago not to attach any kind of emotions to people at all. In their own way they help each other like no one else can.

 

 


End file.
